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Example of communication using ‘gestures’

In the second metalogue (“Why do Frenchmen?”), Gregory Bateson tells us about how information can be communicated with gestures instead of words, and how that is a different sort of information from what we use words to convey.

This video shows a good example of that. It shows a traditional Maori haka being performed at a wedding in New Zealand.

The video demonstrates how much information can be communicated without words (though some words are spoken), how incredibly moving that is, and how the meaning is very different from mere facts.

The video very quickly went viral. It seems that many people, even those who were not at the wedding and know none of the people shown, receive strong messages from watching it.